History Workshop
Standards, Scaffolding and Setting Tasks!
PART ONE
READING, REASONING & REINFORCEMENT
My year so far…changes, changes
 Year 11:
 Significance Unit
 Sources Unit
 Family History
 Internal Assessment – Who Do You think You Are?
 Coming up:
 Historical Fiction Unit
 Internal Assessment – Blog creation
 Black Civil Rights
 The Pacific War
 Year 12
 Significance Unit
 Sources Unit
 Internal Assessment – Protest
 Mini-Unit Salem Witch Trials – Cause and Effect
 Race Relations– a comparison btwn NZ and SA
 Hitler’s Impact on Germany
 Year 13
 Significance Unit
 Sources Units
 Internal Assessment – Personal Investigation
 Early Contact – Internal Assessment 3.4
 Eugenics
Going back to the classroom…
…total reassessment of what I am doing!
 Questioned my understanding of History
teaching and my teaching practice
 Started with the big question…
What is History?
 History is the study of the past, filled with
inferences, decisions about significance,
interpretation, inclusions and omissions,
generally accepted facts and even
speculation (Nokes p.55)
“History is…gossip well told”
Elbert Hubbard
BUT, if we ask our students…
 Who are we as Historians?
 Archaeologists
 Paleontologists
 Explorers
 What we do as Historians
 Surf the net
 Watch History Channel
 Listen to lectures
Historical knowledge vs
historical literacies
“A historical literate person knows how to evaluate the
quality of the information, rather than just regurgitate it
on a test…”
Sam Wineburg, Margaret Jacks Professor of Education and History,
Stanford University, USA
Importance of Evidence
 “When students start operating with the concept
of evidence as something inferential and view
eyewitnesses as providing evidence, not ‘handing
down’ history, then History will resume again” (Lee)
 Traditional History Classroom
 bears no resemblance to what professional historians
do
 radically different work to that of an historian
 up until 2011 we continued this tradition
What we know…
 Students struggle when not supported using
sources
 Students struggle with contradictions
 Students struggle with reading
…and what are the standards
asking our students to do?
 Read critically
 Think historically
 Identify, collect and interpret sources of information
 Differentiate between fact and opinion
 Consider multiple perspectives
 Interrogate historical data
 Use evidence to support interpretations /
generalisations
 Write up their findings – in reports, essays, blogs etc
 Determine and explain significance
So, how do we support
them in this?
Students need:
 to have the opportunity to work with Primary
and Secondary Sources
 to be given feedback and feedforward on their
historical thinking
 Experience tells us:
 by writing more we get better writers
 so it follows that more work with sources leads to
better historical thinkers…
Historical Literacies – what is
it?
 Reading Jeffrey Nokes pp30 – 32
How do we….
…change from seeing evidence
such as cartoons etc [not just] as
a means of transmitting or
receiving information?
 How do we teach students to:
 Review
 Critique
 Question
 Consider the sources - annotate
 Synthesize the message with other sources?
Four ways to encourage this
 Close reading
 Metacognition
 Vocabulary and Literacy
 Before, During and After Reading Strategies
Close Reading
 Skim initially
 Slow down; pause and reflect; annotate
 Refer to the author
 Reread for detail
 Question the text
 Clarify
 Consider the context of source
Metacognition (a)
 Good readers reflect on reading and thinking
process
 Pay attention to what they understand and notice
when this breaks down
 Need to be taught how to do this and what to do
when it fails:

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

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Re read
Question
Seek additional sources
Discuss
Focus on parts
 Mini-Writes – Reading 2
Metacognition (b)
 One strategy to cover a variety of skills = mini-writes
 Testing metacognition:
 What is the most important idea that was generated in
today’s discussion?
 Explain this concept in your own words
 How do you think that this issue is viewed by those
involved in it?
 What questions do you have?
 Gives insight into thought processes
 Non-threatening
 Invaluable feedback and feed forward for
students
Vocabulary and Literacy
 Develop a rich vocabulary
 Knowledge of word meanings
 History related vocab/text that we need to
define
 How?
 Discussion
Before, During and After
reading strategies (1)
BEFORE
 Preview the text – activating background
knowledge
 Establish a purpose for reading – make
prediction
Before, During and After
reading strategies (2)
DURING
 Vary reading speed
 Monitor comprehension
 Summarise
 Make inferences
 Seek clarification
 Ask questions
 Make and verify predictions
Before, During, After reading
strategies (3)
AFTER
 Summarise
 Continue to ask questions
 Discuss
Four resources model
1. Code breakers
2. Meaning makers
3. Text user
4. Text critic
 What is the role?
 What do they need to be
able to do?
 How can we help as history
teachers?
 Are there any specific
strategies we can use?
Summary – to date
 Main ideas so far…
Explicit strategy instruction
 Provide training, practice and support
 Four stages:
 Direct instruction
 Modeling
 Guided practice
 Independent practice
Reading Like a Historian: A DocumentBased History Curriculum Intervention in
Urban High Schools
Reisman p91
Implicit strategy instruction
 Assignment requiring students to engage –
teacher explains it first
 Creation of a study guide prior to analysing a
cartoon
 Brief description of source
 List the images
 List symbols etc
 Walking students through process of analysis
Reading
 Building Students’ Historical Literacies: Learning
to Read and Reason with Historical Texts and
Evidence
Jeffery D. Nokes, Routledge 2013 pp 65 – 81
Additional web help here:
Historical Literacies
So what?
 These strategies and ideas all provide support in
developing students who can:
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Think
Reason
Source
Corroborate
Challenge
Analyse
Evaluate
Do all the things our standards are asking from 3.1 –
3.6
PART TWO
Standards, Scaffolding and Setting Tasks!
Analysis of AS91346 (3.3)
 Handout
 Unpacking of standard done last year
 Immediate Q & A
Revisit the “must do’s” (1)
 Analyse the evidence
 Use historians skills:
 Close reading
 Comprehension
 Extracting meaning
“must do’s” (2)
 Understand historical concepts – this is the focus:
 Perspectives - mutiple
 Relationship of the past to the present
 Reliability and usefulness – not linked and unreliable sources can
be useful
 Bias (personal, unconscious) or propaganda (public intent and
deliberate attempt to promote a view & persuade agreement)
 Continuity and change
 Intent and motivation
 Cause and effect
 Specific and generalised - conclusions
 Influences and significance
 Contingency – counterfactuals, the
“what-Ifs”
Exemplars
 Four questions
 Paragraph style answers
 Analysing concepts:
 Perspectives – positive and negative
 Cause and effect - most significant (one)
 Reliability
 Usefulness
 Must answer ALL questions
From the Schedule – 3.3
 Responses should be written in paragraph form and
marked holistically according to depth of answer
and depth of analytical insight not the range, or
amount, of evidence. The expectations at Merit and
Excellence level need to be realistic with the
markers remaining aware that these are Year 13
candidates providing an understanding of an
unfamiliar context. Therefore markers need to
interpret these terms in the following manner:
 Thorough – willing to point to a weight of evidence
from a range of sources; presenting analysis based
on close and careful reading of a source or sources;
drawing attention to more than the immediately
obvious.
 Discernment – involves ‘reading between the lines’
to draw conclusions that go beyond the
immediately obvious, demonstrating a high degree
of engagement with the evidence.
Strategies for teaching 3.3
 Think Alouds from 2012
 Four Reads – Teaching History
 Sources Unit in History Teacher Aotearoa
 Adapted Seixas Activities:
 I Left a Trace
 Hook, Line and Linker
 Decoding an image – Image Detective
 Corroboration
Scottish Missionary confronted by Māori and Bay
of Islands
Analysis of AS91348 (3.5)
 Handout
 Unpacking of standard done last year
 Immediate Q & A
Revisit the “must do’s”
 Define clearly the historical event in the
introduction
 Must state links between the cause and the event
– establishing the causal relationship
Revisit the “must do’s”
 Choose the event carefully, needs to be
specific and contained
 Causes leading to and consequences following
need to be broad and significant
 Concept of significance and criteria provided in
the standard are of use for
evaluating the consequences
Significance vs Significance
to New Zealanders
 Concept of Significance – teaching point
 Counsell
 Partington
 Phillips
 As opposed to ‘of significance to New Zealanders’
which is in the internal standards
 See History Teacher, Aotearoa for unit on teaching
significance
 Ideas and strategies for teaching significance here
Posters
What are they looking for…

A clear definition of the significant historical
event in the introduction

Establishment and evaluation of historical
causation with well-considered judgments.




Evaluate the causes and consequences
Outlining immediate and underlying causes and
short and long term consequences
Prioritising the causes and consequences,
justifying the relative significance – this was more
important because…
Demonstrate understanding of complexity of
causes and consequences
What does the Schedule tell us?
 Achieved:
 Explained two causes
 Demonstrated understanding of short and long
term relationship which links to the cause of event
 Explained two consequences
 Demonstrated understanding of short and long
term consequences of the event
Exemplars
 Merit
 Evaluated at least two of the causes
 Weighed up the importance of each and
established the primacy of one over the other
 Evaluated two consequences
 Weighed up the importance of each and
established the primacy of one over the other
Exemplars
 Excellence
 Evaluated at least two causes
 Weighed up the importance of each and
established the primacy of one over the other
 Established a persuasive argument supported by
evidence reflecting the complexity of the causal
relationship
 Evaluated at least two consequences
 Weighed up the importance of each and
established the primacy of one over the other
 Established a persuasive argument supported by
evidence reflecting the complexity of each
consequence
Strategies for teaching
Thinking About Cause and Consequence, Seixas
and Morton
 Jenga
 What Broke Alphonse’s Back - handout
 How I Got Here – Peter Seixas
 Champlain and Change
Diamond Nine: Early
Contact in NZ
Hell Hole
of the Pacific
Traders
Sealers and
Whalers
Influence
of guns and
grog
disease
Colonialism
Imperialism
Humanitarian
Movement
Paragraph Writing
 Skill that needs to be explicitly taught, various
methods
 topic sentence
 explain the events and actions using detailed
supporting evidence
 clearly describe the causal relationship to the main
event
 TIE, TEE, SEE etc etc
SouthTeach TOD
 Concept of Causation covered at latest
SouthTeach PLD Day
 Handouts from this are on the stick
 Ideas for department unpacking – Progress in
Causation using the Externals
 Ideas for teaching the concept – Causation –
Inquiries and Activities
Analysis of AS91349 (3.6)
 Handout – from NZHTA Members Area
 Unpacked these last year
 Immediate Q & A
What are they looking for…
A significant historical trend


A significant historical trend is understood to be a
series of related events that has a range of causes
and that illustrates significant social, political, cultural,
environmental or economic changes and continuities
over a period of time.

Force(s) influencing a trend

Presenting well considered judgements….
MUST DO’s
 Define clearly the historical trend in the
introduction
 Must examine the force(s) that influenced the
event
 Force = idea, concept, condition promoting social,
economic or political etc change
 Present well considered judgments demonstrating
their understanding of the trend – change and
continuity
What does the Schedule tell us?
 Achieved:
 Identified and explained two forces that
influenced a trend
 Forces need to be linked to the trend
 Identified two of changes that resulted from the
influence of these forces
 Use supporting evidence
What does the Schedule tell us?
 Merit:
 forces that promote change are identified and
explained
 Used detailed evidence to explain ideas
 Changes that result from the forces are measured
as to their relative importance in establishing
complex patterns of change and continuities
What does the Schedule tell us?
 Excellence:
 Forces that promote change are identified and
evaluated
 Use detailed supporting evidence
 Changes that result from the forces are measured
as to their relative importance in establishing
complex patterns of change and continuities
Exemplar
 Topics:
 Development of Pastoralism in New Zealand
 Change in Māori Society pre 1840
 Outbreak of the Cold War
 Colonisation
Explanatory Note 4
TREND OVER TIME
 Migration, eg British migration to New Zealand in the 19th
Century: what force(s) in Britain influenced this migration,
what changes and continuities occurred as a result of this
in Britain and for Māori and Pakeha in New Zealand?
 The trend of rebellion against autocracy in Russia: what
force(s) influenced the rebellion, what changes and
continuities occurred as a result of the rebellion in Russia?
 Racism, eg Anti-Chinese racism in New Zealand: what
force(s) influenced racism, what changes and continuities
occurred as a result of the racism in New Zealand?
 Changing roles of women, eg in England 1870 to 1930:
what force(s) influenced changes in women’s roles, what
changes and continuities occurred as a result of this trend?
Example: Eugenics
 Social Engineering, eg Eugenics in New Zealand in the
19th Century: what force(s) in influenced eugenics,
what changes and continuities occurred as a result of
this in for Māori and Pakeha in New Zealand?
 Examine the forces influencing the trend – political,
international, social
 Eugenics Movement from Great Britain
 Social - concerns of maternal mortality and infant
mortality and malnutrition / role of church / health
 Political - building society and population
 Economic – having a strong workforce – relate to child
health
 Significant change in NZ society at the time - impacts
 Continuity – survival of the fittest, Plunket Society today,
lack of nutrition, diabetes, TB etc
What about you?
 Trend: ___________________________
 Describe it in the context of ________________________
 Change:
 Examine the forces influencing the trend – political,
international, social
 ______________________________________
 _____________________________________________________
 Change: _________________________________________
 Continuity: ________________________________________
Strategies
 Christine Counsell – 20 strategies for beginning to
teach concept
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Categorising activities
Timelines
Language activities
Use enquiry questions
Card sorting Activities
Reading debates
 What would you use?
Possible questions to consider
using
 What has changed?
 What has stayed the same?
 Which of the changes happened most
quickly?
 Which changes happened most slowly?
 Is there an event that seems to change
everything else after it? Is it a ‘turning point’?
Consider…
 What were the social/political/economic force(s) that
precipitated _______________________?
 What were the consequences of this on ___________?
e.g. What were the social/political/economic force(s)
that precipitated early contact? What were the
consequences for the colonised and colonisers?
 What are the changes over time?
 Does it differ from place to place?
Helpful sentence starters
 One thing that has stayed the same…
 This is a major theme because…
 When all countries undertaking…are looked
at…
 One event that changed everything that
followed…
 This is a turning point because…
 One major cause of change is…